Sunday 8 July 2012 17.31 EDT
First published on Sunday 8 July 2012 17.31 EDT

Noel Coward's gag about the potency of cheap music was swallowed whole by the BBC's Wimbledon producers, who followed Andy's tears with a closing montage over the Beatles' song Let It Be, the exact opposite as it happens of the attitude Murray must adopt if he is ever to win a major. Paul McCartney said the song means we should accept with equanimity some of the bad things that happen in life, a message I suspect Ivan Lendl does not have stuck on his fridge door.

Should equanimity desert you, however, you may want to consult a no-win, no-fee lawyer, as the commentator Andrew Castle regularly recommends daytime TV viewers to do. Castle got the ad presumably because the ambulance chasers felt he was a figure we could trust, but frankly there is not a great deal in his rather bland commentary that hints at the kind of sophisticate who might guide one through a legal minefield. Stating the obvious in time-honoured fashion and essaying the odd one liner – "There's Cliff Richard, wearing his duvet," he said of our brightly attired singing knight – seems to be his stock in trade.

His afternoon concluded with a cliche to which I think we can now give a decent burial. As Federer and Murray were snapped with their trophies, our ever-reliable commentator said, as had many have before him: "These are the pictures that will be beamed round the world, that will be in your morning papers."

Those of you tooled up with 3D kit could have enjoyed the venerable Barry Davies – who may well have been commentating the last time a Brit was in the men's singles final at Wimbledon – as the 3D commentary box has an alternative team; squad players if you like, rather than first-teamers like Castle and Boris Becker. It was the first men's final to be broadcast in 3D, which in my view remains a questionable benefit. At least, it is when you have to phone your kids up to find out where they put those damned silly glasses after they finished watching Avatar, which they'd duped you into buying on Sky Box Office.

Even when the glasses were found, though – in the cupboard with the popcorn, I should have known – it was less than satisfying. With fewer cameras for 3D than for conventional coverage, the director struggles for different angles. Mostly we are behind the server, or we are receiving serve. I watched the ladies' final in 3D, and seemed to spend most of the afternoon shuffling around on the sofa, as Serena Williams fired serves of up to 120mph out of the TV set at me.

In some ways this is a very modern way to watch televised sport – as one commentator pointed out, "With the cameras in a lower position for 3D, you really feel you are in the point" – but it reminded me of watching cricket years ago, when the BBC covered it with a camera at either end, and whole overs could pass with the backside of the wicketkeeper filling your screen.

It seems only proper, however, that BBC Sport should make history at Wimbledon, since that was where sport on TV in this country started.

Around 2,000 people marvelled at TV pictures of the first-round match between Britain's Bunny Austin and the Irish challenger George Lyttleton Rogers on Monday 21 June, 1937, coincidentally when all our years of hurt started.

The audience tuning in at 7.30 on Sunday morning for the 3D repeat of Murray's semi-final against Tsonga was probably not that much higher, so I felt in the vanguard. You certainly get an idea of the speed of the game, notably the ferocity of the serves, but I miss the other shots, especially the celeb cam that picks out seat fillers like Michael McIntyre or Anna Wintour, executive editor of Vogue, or wanders around like a voyeur picking on the unsuspecting; the guy checking his emails, the woman in a headscarf picking her teeth, anyone wearing a straw hat, or with unusual-shaped breasts.

For me this kind of coverage comes closer to replicating the Wimbledon experience. If you are actually among the crowd, as I was one day last week, this is what you do.

In between points, you look around your fellow denizens of Centre Court; and if you are me, wonder how they managed to gather all the customers of Edinburgh Woollen Mill in one place at the same time.

It is also the one event you can never imagine being anywhere else other than the BBC. The old-fashioned, class-conscious quaintness of it, so beloved by the Americans – where else does the stadium announcer refer to the "Gentleman's Champion" — belongs with our public service broadcaster.

When Family Guy or Austin Powers do their little spoofs of Britain, it is the formality, the Gilbert and Sullivan-ness, of occasions like Wimbledon – and our bad teeth, of course — that says Britain to them. Whatever else the BBC may sacrifice in the cause of economy, they must let Wimbledon be.